Fox Nation Find Arlen Specter's Death 'Inspiring'

Fox Nation did a "salute" to Senator Arlen Specter in commemoration of his death yesterday. But the readers were less than salutory. It's possible they rated the post "inspiring" because they wanted to give props to Specter's career as a public servant. And, in fairness, the other options are not much more fitting: offensive, funny, cool, obnoxious, scary and crazy. But the comments left by the readers suggest their respect for the dead ends at the conservative end of the spectrum. They also leave no doubt that the hate spigot never stops against political foes on Fox Nation - which still boasts about being a place of tolerance and civility. (H/T Christopher S.)

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Specter was one of the last moderate Republicans in national public office. The others have largely been run off by the rabid, right-wing teabaggers. A few, in order to stay politically alive, have flip-flopped their views in order to pander to the teabaggers. MagicUnderwear Mitt fits into the latter category.

What kinda ghoul celebrates the death of another? I never saw this kind of disrespect to Reagan when he died. And he was the one I was expecting it for from the left. Very little of that talk, it was all condemned.

@Antoinette: Here’s a bit more information on the “bomb” level of “Atlas Shrugged II” from boxofficemojo.com. Pay careful attention to the first sentence and its numbers.

“In 11th place, Atlas Shrugged: Part II bombed with just $1.75 million from 1,021 locations. In comparison, the first movie opened to $1.69 million from just 299 theaters. The issue here isn’t the source material, as Ayn Rand’s novel is one of the best-selling works of 20th century fiction. Instead, blame it on the terrible execution: only the most die-hard fans are going to show up for what appears to be a cheap interpretation of the beloved novel.”

What’s even more interesting is looking back at the site’s forecast from Thursday the 11th.

“After over 50 years, Ayn Rand’s influential novel was finally brought to the screen last April in Atlas Shrugged: Part I. Unfortunately, it failed to tap in to the Tea Party zeitgeist and wound up topping out at just $4.6 million without ever reaching nationwide release. Still, producers decided to move ahead with Atlas Shrugged: Part II (the second in a proposed trilogy), which is getting a nationwide release in to 1,012 theaters this weekend.

Commercials for Part II have copy that reads “Ayn Rand’s best-selling novel is now a major motion-picture event,” which seems to ignore the presence of the ill-received first movie. They also attempt to tie the movie in with the upcoming presidential election (Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan regularly references Ayn Rand), but the connection isn’t as inherent as it was with documentary 2016: Obama’s America. With the massive release, the movie will probably get past $2 million this weekend, but much more would be a surprise."

So, it appears the film didn’t even meet these low expectations (although I’m not sure what the film’s distributor, Atlas Distribution—not really sure how it’s connected to Rocky Mountain Pictures, the studio behind Part 1—actually expected).